Six-Party Meltdown, or Peace Is Not at Hand
Maybe my prayers have finally been answered. Maybe we’ve finally realized giving the screaming baby lollipops only begets more screaming. For whatever reason, the talks have broken up almost as soon as they began, and not even the South Koreans can put a positive spin on this one:
[A]n official close to the South Korean delegation said, “Everything considered, it looks like a resumption this year will be difficult. The fresh round only lasted three days and was largely taken up with a rehash of old arguments.
The United States rejected a North Korean proposal simply to freeze production of nuclear fuel in return for aid. Washington insisted that the focus remain on complete disarmament rather than the interim steps that North Korea would have to take anyway if it intended to end its weapons program, the American official said.
“They are going to have to surrender the program anyway, so I’m not going to pay them for the same thing twice,” said the official, who requested anonymity in exchange for speaking candidly about the talks. “We would really like to avoid tit-for-tat negotiations that could take years.
The United States says it has strong evidence that North Korea has pursued an underground effort to use enriched uranium for nuclear fuel in addition to its better known plutonium fuel program. The North denies having a uranium program.
“H.E.U. is going to be a major issue when we get to the declarative stage,” said Chris Hill, the top American negotiator at the talks, using the abbreviation for highly enriched uranium.
It’s All About the Benjamins
The Chosun Ilbo reports that chief among the North Korean demands was–how can you not love this?–an end to U.S. efforts to enforce its laws against counterfeiting and money laundering.
North Korea said the issue must be resolved before six-party talks on its nuclear program underway in Beijing can make progress, informed sources said Friday. They quoted the North’s chief negotiator Kim Kye-Gwan as saying the U.S. freeze on the bank and blacklisting of several North Korean companies in the last few months “show an utter lack of basic trust, and in such a tense situation it is impossible to discuss the nuclear weapons issue.
And it certain shows an utter lack of some things things to earn one’s Hennessey through counterfeiting and money laundering–respect for the law and a functioning economy, to name two. But it certainly shows chutzpah to claim the right to do it. The U.S. position here seems commendably firm:
The United States agreed to send a team to explain the penalties to North Korea in the near future, Mr. Hill said. But he added that North Korea would continue to face such penalties unless it stopped trafficking in illicit arms and drugs.
Not to gloat excessively here, but most of the big media missed the significance of the supernotes story, and all that unraveled thereafter, while you were reading all about it here There is the ball. Keep your eye on it. The North Koreans sure as hell are.
North Korea, for its part, stuck to form by sending up to fighters to violate South Korean airspace.
The Joint Chiefs of Staff said the two fighters took off from the Hwangju Airbase in Hwanghae Province. A group of F-5s and K-16s that were patrolling the West Sea quickly moved to the scene to intercept the fighters and forced them to turn back.
The S. Korean Defense Ministry claims that the fighters were not a threat, because they were not coming toward South Korea. So how, physically speaking, is it possible to cross a nation’s border without going toward it? Anyway, what a perfect excuse to introduce you to my newest addiction: Google Earth.
Looking southwest. Cool, eh? Some areas are covered with much higher resolution; you can actually “fly” over the N. Korean countryside and see the results of Kim Il Sung’s on-the-spot agricultural guidance, up close and personal.
As for the talks, I like this quote to end the post:
“I’m not going to be more concerned about getting an agreement than North Korea is,” said the senior American official. “They have to decide that it’s in their interest as well.”